2018 Webinar Series – No 9

My Italian One-Name Study

with Michael Cassara and Julie Goucher

Benvenuto! This is the ninth webinar in the Guild’s 2018 ten-part webinar series. My Italian One-Name Study will focus on how two of our Guild members approach working on a foreign one-name study. In this case, we are traveling to Italy!

Is the surname that you want to research and make your one-name study a “foreign” one? Perhaps you don’t speak the language or you wonder how you will handle translations, foreign record offices and websites, or putting your study together for a world-wide audience. This month Michael Cassara and Julie Goucher will explain how they each do Italian surname research and work on  their Italian one-name studies.

Perhaps your surname of interest is not Italian – no worries! You can apply their tips and suggestions to your own “foreign” one-name study. So wherever your surname originated and wherever it has traveled to, there is something for everyone to learn from My Italian One-Name Study.

Let’s meet the presenters

Michael Cassara is a professional genealogist and lecturer, based in New York City, with specialties in Italian/Sicilian genealogical research and genealogical technology. He holds a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University and serves on the board of the Italian Genealogical Group.

As a speaker, he has given multiple talks at RootsTech, the world’s largest family history conference, as well as to societies nationwide. In October, 2018, he will speak at the Association of Professional Genealogists’ Professional Management Conference in Kansas City, MO, and he’ll be speaking once again at RootsTech in February, 2019.

Michael blogs about his research and genealogy topics at DigiRoots.net and can be found on social media at @DigiRoots and @MichaelCassara.

Julie Goucher has been researching her family history since the late 1980’s and has always been a history lover. A change in career path from the pharmacy industry had Julie returning to education and she undertook an Honours degree in history. Over the last decade or so Julie has focused more on the historical and genealogical aspects. Julie is half Sicilian and half English and has two one-name studies representing surnames from her parents. The Orlando study was registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2002 and the Butcher study in 2016, although it had been a quiet work in progress for more than a decade.

Julie, a writer and presenter, is a Trustee for the Guild of One-Name Studies and is the Tutor for the Introduction to One-Name Studies course offered by Pharos Tutors.

We had a great handout for this webinar. Websites mentioned by Michael and Julie as well as the questions are shown as annotations on the recording. The recording and the handout (Guild Italian Webinar) are available NOW and they will remain available to both Guild members and the genealogy public (thanks Michael & Julie).